McSWEENEY'S INTERNET TENDENCY'S PATREON

I Don’t Actually Have to Sell This War With Iran, Do I?

“Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Thursday that intelligence reviewed by American officials showed that Iran was responsible for attacks earlier in the day on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman, a critical waterway for the transit of much of the world’s oil.” — New York Times, 6/13/19

- - -

Let me cut straight to the chase: I’m tired. You’re tired. The world is overwhelming. We all have stuff we’d rather be doing. There’s tons of brand new original content on Netflix, for God’s sake. Don’t make me actually have to sell this war with Iran.

What do you want me to say? You really want me to pay lip service to some flimsy justification? You’re gonna oppose the war on moral grounds anyway, so what does it matter? I shouldn’t still have to bother with the same old talking points about how they have nukes, or some ship or tanker got blown up, or that I suddenly care about the religious freedom of some brown people. I’ve been wanting this war with Iran for years and it’s time it gets going, so let’s cut to the chase and get it going.

Is it the fact that it’s an unauthorized “war” that’s causing you to bump? Do we really have to go through this old song and dance about how only Congress can declare war? I guess I could concede and call it a “conflict” with Iran, if that’s really what you want, but it’s frankly insulting you’re even making me do that. Let’s get real. The troops are already in Afghanistan. They’re practically in Iran already. I’m not waiting around for Mitch McConnell to finish appointing every right-wing maniac with a law degree to preside over a federal court. Daddy’s got weapons to sell and his summer home in Belize won’t pay for itself.

I get it. I had to lie about every other war since Vietnam. And some of them were good lies, that I honestly took pains to cover up. But I’m getting older and I simply don’t have the energy anymore. I’m practically falling asleep on these cable news shows where I have to talk about war with Iran. There’s only so many ways you can talk about the importance of “spreading democracy” before it starts to become so dull and you start wishing you were anywhere else. Well, not anywhere. Wouldn’t want to be in Iran. That’s a good way to get yourself killed.

Maybe I can make some sort of effort to sell this thing. Maybe I can trot out some steely-eyed psycho general or a self-appointed Iran “expert” to make this whole war more palatable. I suppose I can pay the guys at the Atlantic and the Wall Street Journal to write some pro-war with Iran op-eds. It shouldn’t be too hard — they just have to dig up their Iraq War pieces from 2002 and replace that “q” with an “n.” If all you need is some pseudo-intellectual drivel defending mass death, then great. That’s why those magazines exist. I’ll let those guys throw their backs out trying to climb up on a moral high horse. But I promise you, after a while, you won’t even notice we’re at war with Iran. Unless you’re the poor schmuck who has to actually fight the thing, this whole war can be pushed to the background of your mental landscape, like the last season of Game of Thrones and the children ICE keep in cages. I swear, a decade from now, you’ll see some footage of the war on Fox News in an airport and it won’t even register. You’ll be surprised how long it’s been around, like a browser tab you had open since 2010.

Fine, you want a reason? I’ll give you a reason. The Iranian government is a threat to destabilize the region blah blah blah. Come on. Your eyes glazed over halfway through the sentence. You’re bored and I’m bored. I don’t want to bang the drums of war and you don’t want to hear it. Let me just play you a sample from the drum machines of war. And the beautiful thing about those 808s is they can play on loop forever.